a frightened
woman,--terrible, coming from him. Yet there was cause.

Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim
light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust,
but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half
open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below,
slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of
the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense
muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.

We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated,
bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful
creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things
in romance; but to find the verity here, before my eyes--

Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous thought we sprang
to the door and closed it behind us. The room was sacred; that awful
sight was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some
trivial question of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go
down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked
him with a glance.) "Stay!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"

I nodded.

Valguanera thought a moment, then he said, "Bring two horses; the Signor
Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me,
"You will go, will you not? I think you can explain matters to Padre
Stefano better than I."

"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a
hasty luncheon I wound down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano,
explained my errand to him, found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
and by five o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was
necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.

In the warm twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the
little cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had
for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to
speed her tortured soul on its journey, so long delayed. Nothing was
omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre
Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering
flames of the candles carried